


In Time of Pestilence

by hedda62



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-12 19:57:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/495094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedda62/pseuds/hedda62
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus Snape visits a long-dead relative for help in a time of crisis for the wizarding world.</p><p>This is a crossover with my own original time-travel universe, written in 2004 and now AU (Snape survives).  I enjoyed writing it, and having rediscovered it recently, thought I'd share.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Time of Pestilence

The old merchant limped his way out of the apothecary's shop, nearly stumbling on the steps. Once steady on his feet, he tottered down the canalside path, his gray and black figure becoming one with the mist. Snape closed the door. For a moment, his hand lingered on the latch, and he found himself gazing at it as though it were part of someone else: the veins, the tendons, the shape of the fingers, the subtle shadings of the flesh. He flexed the hand, curled it into a claw, straightened it again, savoring the supple movement.

 _I might pass for his son,_ he thought, _and we are the same age. If that means anything._ The more he thought about it, the less it seemed to mean; but the effect of the visual, of outward appearances, was unusually strong in him today. It had something to do with the painting, no doubt. In a sense, he was oil and pigment and canvas as he stood there, and the yolks of magical eggs, and so was Hieronymus's shop, and Hieronymus himself, and… he looked at the door again, and shook his head. And _not_ the man who had just left. But he was a Muggle, after all, and had his own ways of traveling through time, and his own words of explanation that meant as much or as little as Snape's. And his own bone-deep pain.

"I think you are seeing ghosts, cousin," said Hieronymus, who had entered in panther-like silence while Snape had been distracted.

"In your shop?" he answered with an effort, turning to face his host. "I shouldn't be in the least surprised. And don't you keep a boggart or two in the cupboard, for effect?"

Hieronymus shook his head, chuckling condescendingly. "Indeed the spirits have wafted your thoughts away. Or do scholars no longer know, in your time, that one ought never to confine _two_ boggarts in close quarters together?"

"We know it." _We learn it in our second year of training, for Merlin's sake. He's right; I'm not thinking._ Snape hardened his tone. "We also know not to be so literal."

That earned him a disdainful glance straight out of the (completely hypothetical) Snape-de Waal family portrait gallery. Their kinship was disturbingly evident, even had there not been enough nose for four men in the room; he might have known this centuries-distant relative all his life instead of meeting him for the first and last time today. Not that shared blood meant sympathy or affinity, or anything beyond a similarly jaundiced outlook on the world and an understanding of what was best left unspoken. But it was alarming how quickly they'd become Hieronymus and Severus, and how easily that "cousin" slid between them.

"The fault of the translation spell, no doubt," said the apothecary, not meaning it. He manipulated the spell as he spoke, letting the Dutch flavor the words with a heavy, fishy stink. That was a skill wizardkind had lost in four centuries; language, as Snape knew it, was a tool and not an entity. When Hieronymus spoke, one could almost see the phrases breathe life from his lungs and begin to swim about the room, curling coyly under the counter, peeking through the grin of the ancient stuffed crocodile on the ceiling, bounding from jar to jar, free of mastery and gleeful with it.

"No doubt," Snape echoed, and his own words fell lifeless on the tiled floor.

Hieronymus looked at him for a moment. "Neither ought you release to Muggles" – and Snape could hear an older word pulsate behind the modern English – "those secrets of the cauldron better left unexposed to the common air, or set loose our most potent potions and remedies. Or not," he went on, with something faintly like a smile, "at below market rate."

"I only thought he might find relief."

"From his rheumatism?"

"That… and other ills."

"It was a kindness," said Hieronymus flatly. Snape felt his face coloring, and was furious.

"Should he return, you may charge him what you will. And provide him whatever ingredients you consider he deserves."

"He will return. But not, I think, on many more occasions," Hieronymus said, and the funereal overtones made his meaning clear. "There is a devil abroad in the city, Severus: the snakes and dragons of plague slither through the air, and take men, women and children at random, whether they are prepared or no."

"And so is it in my time. It is why I have come, if you had forgotten – not to negotiate with you about palliatives for decrepit Muggles." His tones were harsh and authoritative; but Hieronymus merely met his gaze and said nothing. _Damn it._ He was going to have to ask all over again. And it had been embarrassing enough the first time. "What were the results of your search? Have you the… the creature's secretions?"

"Spoilt, I am afraid. Not a product for which we have great demand."

"Can you get more?"

"I might." It sounded like a prelude to more bargaining, and Snape waited with strained patience to hear the apothecary's terms; he was surprised when Hieronymus simply nodded and reached for his hat and cloak. "It may take some time," he said.

"That is one commodity with which I am amply supplied."

"I wish my coffers were as full. You will not be disturbed; I shall lock the door when I leave." He waved toward the workshop-cum-sitting room in the back. "Rest. Make yourself at home."

Snape, despite his confident words, still felt a nervous urge to fetch what he had come for and go home again as quickly as possible. Obstinately, he kept to his feet, and spent his unwanted gift of time pacing about and exploring the shop. The place reeked of familiarity; it could almost have been a modern apothecary's establishment in Diagon Alley, or his own well-stocked laboratory, and hence far more part of his world than the anonymous twenty-first-century Muggle chemist's in Oxford Street to which he occasionally had recourse. But here and there he felt a shock of displacement: the distance from his own time was apparent not only in Hieronymus's script and spelling on the faded labels, or in the outdated categorization of products seemingly based on their relation to the bodily humors. Some of the jars contained substances with no use whatsoever, but that was easily explained: this shop was patronized by Muggles as well as wizards and witches. In fact, given that this was Amsterdam in 1655, the magical population gone underground to avoid persecution, there were probably days on which Hieronymus served no one but Muggles. Other differences were not so simple to reconcile.

The religious paintings on the walls, for one, all of them delineating suffering, rather than the joy he knew could attend such things. They did not speak of protective coloration but of an anguished belief, as had Hieronymus's muttered prayer before the short meal they had taken together. Such belief was not unknown among wizards in his era, but it was seldom displayed so ostentatiously.

To prepare the table in the workshop for serving food, the apothecary had swept away, with a brush of his heavy sleeve, the fragments of leaf and exoskeleton that littered it. The papers he had piled loosely to one side, a human skull serving as paperweight. Dozens of other skulls made their presence felt in both rooms, on counters and cupboards: wolf, badger, sheep, monkey, some large and feline beast; Snape couldn't be bothered with the taxonomy of them all. A narwhal's horn leaned on a corner shelf; the long sinuous skeleton of a python was displayed in a glass-fronted cabinet.

They had the aura of talismans, but of what Snape was uncertain: the early stirrings of scientific curiosity, that Muggles would seize upon for their own over the following century? The power resident in the fear of death, to awe the customers? Only half of the bones would make decent potion ingredients, and those had been on display long enough for the dust to discolor them; they weren't intended for grinding up. Perhaps they were simply interior decoration – it wasn't as though Hogwarts lacked for bones, and not all of them were used in teaching – but they made an odd contrast with the piety elsewhere in the room, and Snape sensed a deeper meaning he couldn't grasp. And then there was the secret stash of lancets, huge syringes, bleeding bowls… Muggle nonsense again, or…

He shook himself. It was none of his business. Moving on into the workshop – a cleaner room, scrubbed Delft tiles on the walls and well-polished furniture, though in need of a thorough straightening up – he sat in one of the straight-backed chairs at the large table and, putting aside a skull or two, desultorily flipped through the papers and books Hieronymus had left out, casting translation spells as he went. He was amused that the spells did no more than turn seventeenth-century Dutch to seventeenth-century English. _Ouer sinnes befoure Godd,_ declared one particularly misspelled document, _have braught the Plague upon us, in the Waters and on the Lande, and in the Townes and the Feelds as well, as we have donne nott His Will._

 _If God's will involves proper hygiene and sanitation, quite so,_ thought Snape, going on to read more scientifically-minded but no more practical dictates on miasmas caused by stirring up the dirt in the streets of plague-ridden towns, and how the disease might be prevented by abstaining from the consumption of plums and cherries, as they caused the similarly shaped and colored buboes that marked the onset of the deadly infection. Glancing toward the bowl of fruit in the middle of the table, he was glad to see several gorgeous Damson plums, ripe and ready to be eaten; at least there were limits to Hieronymus's superstitions, though he wondered about those invisible dragons and snakes. He picked up a plum and bit into it, sucking out the juices.

"At times I wish sympathetic magic did work," he muttered, and took another bite.

"At what times?" inquired a curious voice, and he whirled around. A girl leaned against the doorframe, her head to one side, her eyes surprised; she wore the most conservative of contemporary clothing, though her hair was uncovered and escaping its bounds in runnels of dirty blonde.

"At the same times that I wish I truly had eyes in the back of my head, as my students have always claimed. Madame…?" he inquired, substituting the French as he recalled how Hieronymus had addressed the merchant.

"I am sorry. I took you by surprise, and it was very rude of me. Mademoiselle de Waal," she said, curtseying.

He nodded back, putting down the plum. "Your quiet movement is a paternal inheritance," he said, hoping he'd guessed correctly. She bore no resemblance to Hieronymus that he could see. Definitely not the nose.

She stuck out a slipper-covered foot in explanation. "But my mother did teach me to walk in wooden clogs soundless, without benefit of Silencing Charms. She claimed it was the mark of a lady. I prefer taking people by surprise."

"And what does your mother say to that?"

"Oh, she died several years ago. A cleaning spell gone awry." The girl – young woman, really; she must be at least twenty – did not seem terribly perturbed at reporting the death. So, Hieronymus had lost his wife; he had not mentioned even possessing one.

"My sympathies," said Snape curtly.

"Thank you. My father said you came through a painting. What could that have been like?" Without waiting for an answer, she went on: "I do not know your name."

"Severus Snape."

"It's not worse than mine. Artemis," she added, in a tone that indicated he'd inquired and she was reluctantly admitting to it. "It suits me little."

 _Virgin goddess of the hunt. Well, possibly one out of three…_ "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"You needn't be polite on my behalf. It seems to hurt you. Or are you ill?"

"Not yet," he said, scowling.

She nodded. "We are all of a fluster about the plague." However, she did not sound flustered in the least, just rather dreamy, as though she were reporting something she'd heard and been amazed by, rather than something she'd felt. Reaching into her bodice, she brought out a tiny bag; the scent of herbs warmed by human skin wafted into the room. "It will not save me," she said, "but it is better than what the Muggles have. Should you like one of your own?"

"I shall be returning home quite soon. The Muggles have a cure for your plague, where I come from."

She shrugged and thrust the sachet back into her bosom. "Then it matters not."

A belated realization struck him. "You're speaking English. I haven't cast a translation spell, and neither have you."

" _Ja, ik spreek uiterst goed het Engels,_ " she said, perversely switching languages. " _Ik was een leerling op uw Engelse school, Hogwarts._ "

"Why?"

"My father thought their teaching of Potions superior."

He laughed, reluctantly. "I teach Potions there now."

"Then I am certain it is still superior," she said, curtseying again. He bowed stiffly in response. "Should you like some tea?" she asked.

"Yes. Please." The words came out before he was quite sure he meant them, but she was already turning to leave the room. Then she paused, stepped toward him, and took up a book that lay on top of one pile. She drew it close to her eyes and paged through it; when she had found the place she wanted, she passed the book to him in a two-handed, formal gesture. As his eyes focused on the text, he realized that she had been reading upside-down.

"I discovered your English Muggle poets while at Hogwarts," she said. "You might enjoy this one."

 _They're not_ my _Muggle poets…_ But she was gone before he could vocalize the thought. And _enjoy_ was hardly the right word either, he considered, gripping the slim leather volume in tightening fingers and reading, filtering out the oddities of spelling and capitalization by habit.

_Rich men, trust not in wealth,_  
 _Gold cannot buy you health;_  
 _Physic himself must fade;_  
 _All things to end are made;_  
 _The plague full swift goes by;_  
 _I am sick, I must die—_  
 _Lord, have mercy on us!_

_Beauty is but a flower_  
 _Which wrinkles will devour;_  
 _Brightness falls from the air;_  
 _Queens have died young and fair…_

Abruptly he closed the book. After a moment's steady breathing, he opened it again, investigating: it was a play, of sorts, entitled _Summer's Last Will and Testament,_ by one Thomas Nashe, this edition published 1600. _All things to end are made. Well, he no doubt knew what he was talking about._ Snape read with detached interest for several minutes, admiring the language and scoffing at the sentiments, until Artemis returned with a tray in her hands.

She poured from the oriental teapot and handed him a cup, and his nose took in the scent before his lips touched the rim. "Ah. _Tea._ I wasn't sure…"

"The Muggle merchants sell China tea now. It was too expensive when I was a child, and the price has risen once more of late, as some think it a panacea against plague. But we consume it… on occasions which merit its consumption. I thought your visit was one."

"I am honored," he said, drinking.

"This leaf we had of Monsieur van Oosten," she went on, looking at him curiously.

"The old merchant who…" She nodded. "How many exchanges in private do you overhear in this shop?"

"You cast no charm to prevent it. But I have known for some while that he was not of this time. And surely you cannot mind my hearing what little you told him of your history, or what you did for his comforting. It is all to your credit."

"I have no need for credit." _Gold cannot buy you health…_

Artemis smiled and sipped her tea. "He is one of my favorite customers. He is always ready to talk of any subject under the sun. And he calls my father a quack, which is most amusing."

"Does he know about…?"

"The magic? Oh, I think not. We take great care, as you understand. They kill witches here." She put her head on one side again, and suddenly Snape was convinced he'd seen her before somewhere, but her next words put the search for context out of his mind. "I am _quite_ certain you were cautious."

"Of course I was," he snapped guiltily. "Don't you think I'm practiced enough at it?"

"I would have no knowledge of that," she replied in mild tones. "For all I know your world is one in which wizard and Muggle go side by side in peace as the lion and the lamb."

"Hardly."

"Do they kill witches still, then?"

"No. We do well enough at that ourselves." The words, drawing momentum from his tight breath, slammed against the walls, breaking shelves full of invisible crockery, and Snape started.

"Have one of these cakes," said Artemis. "Their flavor is quite delicate." He took one, grateful of the chance to block speech. "I found much to be enjoyed in my time at Hogwarts," she went on, in one of those switchbacks that seemed to mark her conversational style, "although I was a stranger in a strange land, in the early years most especially, awkward and friendless and struggling with the language. But the castle was magnificent, if draughty, and the grounds beautiful, particularly when deep in snow."

"It does not seem to snow there much anymore. Not like when…" Snape caught himself. _Now when I were young, the winters were so parky and snow laid so long that t'owls were putting mail down chimneys for want o'windows… I sound like my old uncle, dull and repeating myself. And old is what I am, of course._ "The Muggles have done something to the weather, they say."

"Have you been at Hogwarts long, then?"

"Most of my life." He considered arithmetic and rejected it. "I was a student there, and I taught Potions for years. Then I became Headmaster. Later… there were reasons for me to leave my post, but I found I could not leave the school, so I turned Potions master once again."

"How odd to consider it is all in the future," mused Artemis. "I think it is the same with Monsieur van Oosten, that he regrets what has not happened as yet." _I said nothing about regret,_ thought Snape, but he was not about to challenge her, and in any case she went on speaking of van Oosten. "There is sadness in a great cloak about him; I could see its weave thicken when his daughter went to God, and, of late, his wife, but it was there even before. I knew of it as a child, when my eyes read such things with ease." She gazed at him in frank and unsettling assessment for a long moment. "You did not answer my question."

"Which one? There have been so many," he answered rather caustically.

"At what times do you wish sympathetic magic did work?" she said.

"When my students melt their cauldrons, and I wish it were they," he supplied with ease, and Artemis laughed. That was it: she reminded him of a student. Which one? _There have been so many._ It was one of whom he had thought recently, however.

"But such an event," she said, "would only occur when concocting potions that contain a small piece of the student: hair, nails, blood. And when done with intent." He looked at her sharply. "Or so the Muggles believe. My father has turned many with those interests away. And that was a witticism, not truth. What was your thought when you made the remark, when first I came into the room?"

There seemed no harm in telling her. "There are Muggles in distant lands who believe one can shrink a tumor through its representation by a piece of fruit or other desiccating object. What afflicts us now, at home, seems to be akin to a magical tumor. Or rather, a tumor that steals magic. And finally life."

Artemis's eyes widened. "How quickly does it kill?"

"It varies. Some die within weeks of first affliction. Others linger, weakening slowly, for months." His voice was steady; the words quivered in the air of their own accord.

"One can make one's peace with the world, even given mere weeks," said Artemis gently, and he knew she was thinking of the plague now killing Amsterdam's citizens in days or hours. "But I am very sorry."

He inclined his head toward her, covering his emotion with another sip of what was now cold tea. She took the cup from him and refilled it. "And have you come here with a cure in mind?"

"A faint hope. A dreamer's hope."

"And that is…?"

"I found a parchment. Very old, perhaps fourteenth century. Magically preserved. Not even a recipe, just hints. But some survived the illness, once. Isolation, and the right potion: whether for treatment or prevention we are uncertain. It is a chance."

"And we have an ingredient for which you seek?"

"Your father's supply was spoilt. But he has gone out to collect more, if he can." He hesitated, then recited his improvised recipe to her. She listened, her head on one side again.

"It does have elements of a Shrinking Solution, does it not?" she said when he was done. "But the fluxweed would controvert some of the effects… naturally you would wish that… and the new ingredient replaces the rat spleens – are the beasts truly vanished in your time?"

"Most experts agree," he said, his voice dry at the thought of one dissenter. Looking at Artemis, he found recognition tugging at him again, but could not fix on it. "May I ask – what house were you in, at Hogwarts?"

"Ravenclaw," she said. "What other house would one wish to be in?" He couldn't tell whether it was a joke, and strangely enough he wanted to know.

"I was a Slytherin."

"Yes," she said, examining him, her head tilting like a bird's. "I rather like snakes. Except when they bite." She glanced toward the window. "My father's absence concerns me," she went on, still in dreamy tones that evidenced no tension.

"He said it might take some time."

"Not that he is abroad at length, but that he is abroad at all. He thinks himself immune from the plague, but truly no one is, wizard or no."

"He ought not to breathe their exhalations," Snape told her brusquely. "Or touch the swellings. Keep fleas out of your house and off your bodies. Burn cinnamon and wormwood." He considered adding something about moldy bread, but that would be a betrayal in more ways than one. "Don't use rats in your potions. For most uses, rabbit is an acceptable substitute."

"My thanks," she said quietly.

"I should regret it if my needs put him in danger." His throat and tongue, long accustomed to harshness, shaped the syllables against his will, and they emerged sharp and angry, stabbing the dusky air like shards of glass.

Artemis was silent for a time, and then said in a near-whisper: "Cousin, why came you _here?_ Of all places and times you could have gone?"

"I am not intent on self-murder. Only poor at history," he said, twisting his mouth into a ghost of a smile to reassure her. "I was not aware of your troubles until I arrived. And there are not so many apothecaries among my ancestors as you might expect."

"There are many _not_ related to you. In England. Or in regions where your missing ingredient might have been collected fresh from the source."

"True." _Though the latter is not a pleasant thought._ He looked at her face, trying in vain to find something of his own in it. "But there are moments – few enough of them in my life – when turning to family seems the only thing to do."

Artemis put her hand on his, pale satin brushstroked atop sallow blotches, in the impressionism of wavering vision. "We are honored," she said.

"As I believe I said earlier, so am I." He lifted his cup of tea to her and drank; it had gone cold again, and he grimaced.

"It is not in our destiny to consume this tea," she said, meeting his eyes. "Would you care for some wine instead?" For a moment, the waning days of his autumn lengthened, and it was summer again; a breeze caressed sunlit vines in the south of France. He blinked the illusion away, and found flecks of gold in her irises and strands of gold in her hair.

"I suspect," he replied after allowing himself a moment of indulgent gazing, "that it would not be _some_ wine; it would be a great deal of wine, and that would be an abuse to your hospitality, as well as to my poor aged body."

"Not so very aged, cousin."

"Older than you think. Older than your father, by a good decade."

She smiled and withdrew her hand. "Wizards, should they survive their pandemics, live a great many years," she said.

"As old men," he amended. _Brightness falls from the air…_

"Old, bitter, lonely men," she said, making a face. "That is what my father says he will be when I leave the house to marry."

"And have you plans in that regard?"

"Not at the moment. I have an eye open for passing journeymen. My father will need someone to leave the shop to, some day in the distant future." Her eyes narrowed. "Before you came you must have examined our family tree…"

 _Oh, damn._ "You truly do not expect me to—"

"No. Forgive my presumption. I have no experience of this; I merely wished…" She swallowed. "It is only that witches – should they survive pandemics and childbirth and Muggles – also live a great many years, and I did hope… oh, I wish… I wish for life, and love, and happiness. I wish you had it as a gift." It was the first deep feeling he had heard in her voice; it traced green tendrils of vitality, tentative but yearning, wrapping about the air and climbing, young and selfish and irresistible. And then, just as he was about to respond, embracing the vision with whatever vigor remained to him, the vines wilted in remorse. "I am sorry. Oh, cousin, I am sorry."

"Don't be. Your life is… you ought…" _Bloody hell._ He took a deep breath. "Ten points from Ravenclaw, Mademoiselle de Waal, for an answer with no sense to it whatsoever." She laughed. "Did they do that in your time as well?" he asked, relieved.

"Something very like." She massaged the knuckles of her right hand. "And I will pretend to sense as best I am able, _Magister._ "

His lip twitched up. "What an agreeable form of address. I believe I shall revive it." She smiled. "I cannot give the gift you speak of," he said, his mouth sober again. "I told you I was a poor historian. All I knew was your father's name and city. Nothing of you or your future. And I cannot take you home with me; I think it would rip the canvas of time, and you would be in no less danger, if my potion proves useless."

"I understand."

"It is, however, an incontrovertible fact that we are related, and therefore someone in your father's line must have survived to produce the cousins of whom I know in my day, and you are the only child—"

She shook her head. "I have a brother in Utrecht," she said. "And he carries the family name."

"I see." Her face showed resignation; her eyes the only remaining hint of desperate longing. "Perhaps we had better take that glass of wine after all?" he said, because there was nothing else he could say.

She had barely poured it when they heard the heavy closing of the shop door, and then Hieronymus was with them again, shaking the cold rain of early autumn off his hat and cloak. "Ah, my good daughter," he said when they rose to greet him, "I had hoped you would keep Severus company."

"Have you been careful, father?" she said, going to him.

"Better ask whether I have been successful. I have." He unwrapped a bundle and held out a glass beaker, stoppered with cork and filled with a faintly glowing liquid. "My friend was better supplied than I, as I supposed. Semen of Crumple-Horned Snorkack: the fulfillment of your desire."

"Thank you," said Snape, taking it gingerly and trying not to look at Artemis while he rewrapped the bundle. "And how much more do I owe you?"

"Not a thing. Lodewijck and I take it out in exchanges, and I shall cheat him when next he asks." Snape nodded; Artemis, the Ravenclaw, snorted disapprovingly. "Pour me a glass, child; I am weary beyond belief." Hieronymus sat down heavily in a chair; Snape wavered on his feet.

"I should go," he said, "now that I have what I came for. I have outstayed my welcome."

"Shall you return to the same moment in time in which you left?" asked Artemis, and he nodded. "Then it matters not how long you remain here."

"But it is self-indulgence I cannot afford. There are people awaiting me; I cannot sit in a bubble outside time drinking wine and chattering."

"I should hardly describe our conversation as _chattering._ Though I might chatter should you wish it; shall I tell you what the Grey Lady says of John Dee, or what the Gryffindor sixth years do with the merpeople each Beltane Eve? It is curious how much one can learn simply by listening, when one is that odd Dutch girl to whom it is not worth paying any heed. In the end they learnt not to underestimate me."

"Somehow that does not come as a surprise. Cousin," said Snape. He saw her, suddenly, in his mind's eye, dressed in the Hogwarts robes of his own time, and knew of whom she reminded him: a fortuitous coincidence, or not. "Do you happen to know anyone called Lovegood?" he asked.

"The name is not familiar," said Artemis, frowning slightly. She glanced at her father and he shook his head.

"It's not important," Snape said. He would have to see the old reprobate upon his return, for tiresome discussions of who had been right and who wrong and in what degree – Lovegood having insisted that the Snorkacks still lurked to that day in obscure valleys of the Urals, and Snape having refused to acknowledge, even after clear evidence proved him wrong, that they had ever existed at all – and perhaps, after the trying interview, it would not be unnatural to inquire after the well-being of Lovegood's daughter. Who must be… in her forties by now. Time had a way of passing.

"To health and long life," he said, raising his glass. Artemis caught his eyes and smiled.

"To the bonds of kinship," said her father, "that yoke us one to the other, no matter how many the years that fall between." Again, he let the Dutch color the tone of the translation, though now it was neither heavy nor fishy, but liquid-sweet and charming as the blue-and-white of Delft pottery, and the ties he evoked seemed light enough to carry. All experience to the contrary.

"How do you do that?" Snape blurted out.

"How do I do what?" said Hieronymus, winking. "We shall discuss it when next you visit. When you will have fewer worries and all the time one could wish." Snape nodded, trusting for the moment in the divination of hope.

Before he could turn to go, Artemis slipped ahead and fetched his coat, a last act of service. She put it around his shoulders and whispered a Latin phrase in his ear. And when he spoke in response, in thanks and in farewell, he could hear the words in Dutch and in English and in a language that was older than both and as new as syllables meeting the air for the first time; and they went up like a cloud lifting darkness from the heart, and they came down like the snow swirling around the towers of Hogwarts, brightness falling from the air, to settle silently in the soft, drifting, joyful deeps of winter.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find out more about my original universe, the Waters of Time series of novels, at http://ericahsmith.wordpress.com.


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